I have confession to make: I don’t like conferences. I don’t like seminars or conventions, either. I also don’t like colloquiums, symposiums, forums, or summits. I love people (really, I do) and I love discussions about ideas. But something happens when you put them together into a “conference” that causes my introverted tendencies to spike. I’m just not a conference-going kinda guy.

That’s probably an odd admission to make, especially in a post in which I try to convince you to come to Acton University. But it puts my praise for AU in perspective. Even though I don’t like most conferences I still have to go to several every year. All of the ones I attend are excellent, engaging, and fruitful—but they aren’t the sort of thing you’d go to if you aren’t a fan of conferences. AU is different. It’s the only conference-type event I can unreservedly recommend to people who don’t like conferences. Here are four reasons why:(more…)

Leonard Nimoy, best known for his role as Spock in the Star Trek television series and movies, passed away last week. For many of us, it was a sad event. Nimoy had created a memorable character that is an enduring and endearing part of our pop culture lexicon. While my colleague Jordan Ballor took a look last week at Spock’s “live long and prosper” tagline, I’d like to refer to the more human side of Spock and the world of Star Trek.

Stephen D. Greydanus at the National Catholic Registerreflects on what Nimoy and Star Trek taught us about humanity. The series creator, Gene Rodenberry, envisioned a world where poverty had been eliminated, money was unnecessary, and creatures of very different origins learned to work together for peace and mutual respect. (more…)

On Friday afternoon, Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sirico joined Neil Cavuto on Fox News Channel to discuss the notable lack of outrage on the part of the media in response to the slaughter of Christians by terrorist organization ISIS.

Yesterday, Acton’s Director of Research Samuel Gregg made an appearance on Relevant Radio’s The Drew Mariani Show to discuss Pope Francis’ recent comments calling money “the dung of the devil,” setting them in their proper context and discussing the Pope’s comments on cooperative organizations as well. You can listen to the interview via the audio player below.

A new report out of the U.K. shows just how muddled discussion on genetically modified crops really is. Late last week the U.K. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published: “Advanced genetic techniques for crop improvement: regulation, risk, and precaution.” Very broadly, this report set out to look at the “challenge of feeding a burgeoning global population, using few resources,” specifically the use of GMOs, as well as the “EU’s current regulatory regime for genetically modified organisms (GMOs).”

The report acknowledges that no single type of food can end the difficulties feeding the global population; however, “novel crops could play an important role in helping tomorrow’s farmers to produce more from less.” The report found major obstacles keeping innovations like this from wider use:

The EU’s current regulatory regime for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) threatens to prevent such products from reaching the market, both in the UK, in Europe and, as a result of trade issues, potentially in the developing world.

While we would agree that all work matters, we tend to more highly praise others for doing great things on their own outside the home. I’ve even seen it in my own life when, in some circles, I define myself first as a writer in order to prove that I do something meaningful with my life during the day.

March is Women’s History Month, and during this month the Acton PowerBlog will be highlighting a number of women who have helped advance the cause of liberty and a free and virtuous society.

A month or so ago, I read Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings, which is a fictionalized account (in part) of the lives of the Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina. When I realized it was based on two real-life women, it gave me the impetus to learn more regarding these two amazing women. (more…)

One of the core principles of the Acton Institute is the importance of the rule of law: “The government’s primary responsibility is to promote the common good, that is, to maintain the rule of law, and to preserve basic duties and rights.”

While most conservatives would agree with this sentiment, there has recently been a lot of confusion about what defending the rule of law requires and entails. The most troubling mistake is the confusion of the rule of law with judicial supremacy, the view that the Supreme Court gets to have the “final say” on the meaning of the Constitution and that the other branches of government may not contradict it.

As Carson Holloway says, conservatives should defend the Constitution and the rule of law, but they should not defend judicial supremacy. The Constitution—not the Supreme Court—is our country’s highest authority:

Rev. Robert Sirico ponders the economic and theological links between Pope Francis and Oscar Romero today at RealClear Religion. Sirico says that these “two prominent churchmen of our era … expose the difference between a ‘preferential option for the poor’ and a preferential option for the state.”

Both men have been linked heavily to Liberation Theology, but Sirico points out that this is a misguided understanding of the thoughts and works of both Pope Francis and Archbishop Romero.

For whatever form of Liberation Theology (and there are several) either Romero or Francis represent, it is certainly not the variety most popularly espoused in the Latin America of the 1980s and condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The ascendant form of Liberation Theology of that era emerged from a Christian encounter with Marxism as seen largely in the work of Gustavo Gutierrez (Peruvian), Leonardo Boff (Brazilian), Juan Luis Segundo (Uruguayan), Jon Sobrino (Spanish) and Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaraguan). (more…)

Much attention has been given to Greece’s fiscal and political issues, but one European country may have even bigger problems: France. Writing in the American Spectator, Samuel Gregg discusses ‘Europe’s Real Time Bomb’ and how the challenges Greece faces are miniscule compared to France’s.

It’s no exaggeration to say that France is facing one of its most systematic crises since the Fourth Republic’s collapse in 1958. This time, however, there’s no man of destiny—no Charles de Gaulle—waiting in the wings to save France from itself. In fact, that’s part of France’s problem: a political class that, regardless of party, isn’t adept at imaginative thinking, especially concerning Exhibit A of France’s problems: its economy.

So I left Vegas with a question: Is the friendly police state the price of the freedom to drink and gamble with abandon?Whatever your position on vice industries, they are heavily associated with crime, even where they are legal.

Two Bay Area lawmakers are seeking an investigation of working conditions at high schools administrated by the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, over the archbishop’s proposed morality clauses for teachers.